Summary: Children's Sensitivity to Their Own Relative Ignorance: Handling of
Possibilities Under Epistemic and Physical Uncertainty
Elizabeth J. Robinson
Warwick University
Martin G. Rowley
Keele University
Sarah R. Beck, Dan J. Carroll, and Ian A. Apperly
University of Birmingham
Children more frequently specified possibilities correctly when uncertainty resided in the physical world
(physical uncertainty) than in their own perspective of ignorance (epistemic uncertainty). In Experiment 1
(N 5 61), 4- to 6-year-olds marked both doors from which a block might emerge when the outcome was un-
determined, but a single door when they knew the block was hidden behind one door. In Experiments 2 (N 5 30;
5- to 6-year-olds) and 3 (N 5 80; 5- to 8-year-olds), children placed food in both possible locations when an
imaginary pet was yet to occupy one, but in a single location when the pet was already hidden in one. The
results have implications for interpretive theory of mind and ``curse of knowledge.''
Adults' and children's handling or mishandling of
uncertainty have long been the focus of research. In
the adult literature, researchers have made a dis-
tinction between uncertainty that arises in the ex-
ternal world (for example about the fall of a die not